Sandra Adomavičiūtė. Rethinking NGO Funding: From Short-Term Projects to Strategic Vision

Sandra Adomavičiūtė, Executive Director of the Open Lithuania Foundation

Services for vulnerable groups, community mobilization, and the defense of human rights and the public interest are among the essential functions of non-governmental organizations. Without them, no society can remain healthy for long. If we want democracy to stand on more than independent media and the judiciary alone, we need a strong, politically independent NGO sector. And while it is always easier to complain about a lack of money, the deeper problem may lie elsewhere: not in the amount of funding, but in the absence of strategic vision within the institutions that shape social policy.

International experience makes one thing clear. A sustainable NGO ecosystem depends on long-term institutional funding, diversified sources of support, and investment in people’s skills and organizational capacity.

Norway offers a compelling example. Multi-year programmatic agreements, lottery-based funding allocations, and compensation mechanisms give organizations the stability to plan ahead, invest in their teams, and improve the quality of their work. Just as importantly, Norwegian politicians do not treat funding as a weapon, even when civil society is critical of them. Dissent is accepted as part of democratic life, not punished as disloyalty.

Switzerland provides another lesson. There, strong support from corporate foundations and philanthropy reduces civil society’s dependence on the state and on shifting political cycles. This is where Lithuania still lags behind. The gap is not only financial. More importantly, it is systemic. It is a question of political trust in civil society and of whether the state sees NGOs as partners or merely as temporary contractors.

That is where Lithuania’s real problem lies: in the structure of funding and in chronic political short-sightedness. Too many organizations are still forced to survive from project to project, depending on funding cycles set by the state, the European Union, or international donors. But social problems do not disappear when a one-year project ends. Communities do not stop needing support just because an administrative timeline has run out.

When organizations cannot plan several years ahead, they cannot invest seriously in their teams, their internal development, or their ability to measure impact. The result is predictable: NGOs remain fragile, and the services communities rely on become unstable and inconsistent.

This model also produces fragmentation. Tools, methodologies, and digital solutions are often developed within short-term projects and disappear with them. Political short-sightedness pushes organizations to focus on immediate survival rather than long-term change. That is a costly mistake. If we are serious about resilience, democracy, and social cohesion, we need to invest in lasting impact, not temporary outputs.

Lithuania’s 1.2% personal income tax designation mechanism is a valuable instrument, and it is encouraging that this support is now directed more clearly toward NGOs. But this alone cannot provide stability for the whole sector. Not long ago, the same mechanism was also benefiting public institutions such as state kindergartens and schools. That should serve as a warning: progress is never irreversible, and without political will, backsliding remains possible.

The broader logic of public funding is still deeply flawed. Too often, the focus remains on formal compliance and micro-control rather than on meaningful long-term outcomes. The system is still better at checking receipts than at evaluating public value.

The situation is even more fragile outside the major cities. In the regions, we still hear stories of NGOs expected to demonstrate full loyalty in exchange for a few hundred euros from municipal budgets. That is not a healthy relationship between local government and civil society. It is certainly not compatible with the idea that NGOs should be free to criticize power when necessary.

If Lithuania genuinely wants a strong civil society, the response must be systemic, not cosmetic. And it would not take decades to see the difference. A few serious political decisions could reshape the ecosystem within just a few years.

Three steps, in particular, could change the picture dramatically. First, three- to five-year institutional funding agreements should become the rule rather than the exception. Second, funding decisions should be insulated as much as possible from political cycles and indexed to inflation. Third, strengthening NGO competencies and expanding philanthropy should become an integral part of public funding policy, so that the state and international donors are not the only dominant pillars of support. Even without dramatically increasing the total amount of funding, such reforms would produce a very different result.

The encouraging part is that Lithuania does not need to invent solutions from scratch. It already has working models and proven administrative expertise. Over the past five years alone, the Open Lithuania Foundation has attracted and distributed more than €12 million from international donors to civil society organizations. This support has reached more than 300 NGOs and local communities across the country. Our model is grounded in international transparency standards, professional administration, grantmaking and subgranting mechanisms, systematic capacity-building, and the promotion of democratic values and civic culture in communities.

Still, a sustainable system will not emerge from government decisions alone. The NGO sector also has responsibilities of its own. Organizations must stop seeing themselves only as applicants and start acting more confidently as partners. They need to articulate their value more clearly, strengthen their negotiating power, and diversify their sources of income. Dependence on a single source of support weakens not only financial stability, but also independence and voice.

The sector must also make better use of its own expertise and build a stronger economic base through a more respectful and professional culture of collaboration. And business, too, should be encouraged to engage with NGOs not only as beneficiaries of charity, but as credible partners and service providers.

If Lithuania wants a more resilient democracy, it needs a stronger civil society. And if it wants a stronger civil society, it must finally move beyond short-termism, political control, and the illusion that project funding alone can sustain the public good.